Italia, come ti voglio bene

It is wonderful to be back in Italy, 6 months after departing Milan.  The conference has taken up most of my time in Naples, so I haven't been able to fully explore the city.  However, I managed to see a few churches and visit Pompeii my first day here.  I have half a day of tourist-ing tomorrow, during which I plan to go to the archaeological museum, which holds most of the artefacts from Pompeii.

Even though I am in a very different part of Italy and within a very different context, I've found that being here is very familiar and Italy "feels like home" in many ways.  This experience would likely be much less fun and much more overwhelming had I not lived in Milan for 3 months:

• I more-or-less knew how to navigate the bus system here.  The hardest part is figuring out where to buy tickets - and I wasn't surprised when the news-seller refused to take a 20-Euro bill.  Small change is a necessity here!
• I mostly did ok taking the train to Pompeii and back.  The only mistake I made was not knowing the name of the station I wanted to get off at in Naples - I thought it was Centrale.  Luckily, it was the last station and I had to get off, even though I was waiting for the train to continue on.
• My Italian is serving me ok and coming easier than expected.  I'm still nowhere near the level I was last March, but I am succeeding in starting most interactions in Italian.  At the conference, all of the scientists speak English, but some of the staff seem to not speak very much.  
• I managed to find a great tea shop on my first day.  Obviously I do this in every city I travel to, but I had known that I could find some tea to take home.
• I know that restaurants are going to annoyed if I arrive before 8 PM, even if they are open.  I managed to eat at an Italian dinner time today and yesterday, but I knew I was way too early the first day... 
• I know how to get espresso, and can (more or less) identify the correct way to pay in different types of bars.  I know that cappuccinos go with breakfast (which is pastries) and that espresso is called cafe and that it goes after meals.
• I wasn't surprised by the building my hotel is in.  There is this style of urban buildings that have an inner courtyard with a strange door for people to enter from outside.  I have never seen anything like it in the US and it was very surprising to me the first time I went in one in Milan.  The common areas are simultaneously elegant and run down, but then they can hold very nice apartments.  This building holds many business and apartments.  The elevator is terrifying - and there are some subtleties to this one I haven't figured out yet.  But had I not had practice with the strange door system at my Italian tutor's place, I may never have managed to get into the hotel!
• Italian cities are loud, and in a different way from American cities.  In my apartment in Milan I could hear everything from the apartments around me (including chanting from upstairs) and there was frequently shouting in the street.  Here there is plenty of noise from upstairs and some nearby dogs that bark all of the time.  Compared to the US there seems to be much less traffic noise.
• The cord in the shower is an emergency pull and not for drying clothes.  It is not to be pulled, except in emergencies.
• Gelato can definitely be for dinner, and I even have a favorite flavor (cassata)

As much as I enjoy the conference and sightseeing, I also enjoy the day-to-day details of being in Italy.  I hope to come back again, though I do not know when that will be.  Assuming that I get tenure, I hope I can spend part of my sabbatical here.  This trip has shown me that it would be wonderful to be anywhere in Italy, not just in the north.  

Moderate Success at Departure

Taxi: Success
I found an App so that I could request a taxi without calling anyone.  It showed up on time, I think I didn't forget to do anything when I left the apartment (I was nervous I'd forget to leave the keys), and there was no traffic getting to the airport.  I had just enough Euros to pay the cab, though I think I could have paid via credit card in the app.

Bag Check: Almost Success
I arrived so early so that I couldn't check my bags right away.  When I did go to check my bags, I succeeded in convincing (easily) the gate agent that I could check 2 bags for free because of my Elite status on Delta.  Awesome.  He even thought that I should pay a lower fee ($60) than the system was saying ($85).  Awesome.  But then I had to go to a different desk to pay... where they actually knew the rules and said that I had to pay $240 for the bag.  Ouch.  Note that while these conversations all started in Italian, I switched them into English so that I could be convincing as possible.  I failed.  I'm mostly bitter that they wouldn't accept American Express.

Now I am at my gate, charging my electronic devices and downloading some music on the WiFi.  The next challenge is a short layover in Paris, where I need to go through EU-exit border control.  If I miss my second flight and end up trapped in Paris, I'll have time to blog about it!

Summary of my Leave, as a list of lists

Scientific Progress

• One article submitted (project started during leave)
• One article in preparation (project started last summer)
• One article in preparation (project started during leave)
• Data collected for new simulation project
• Experiments planned for (another) new simulation project
• I've mastered an aspect of Geant4 I haven't used before
• I've read a lot of papers about two different topics, tangentially related to my past work and central to the current/future papers.  Basically, I've gone from knowing nothing to 'a lot' on two new topics.
• I've read a number of papers related to my past work/ongoing projects and gotten caught up on the literature of my specialty.

Cities/Towns I've visited

• Milan
• Lecco
• Genova
• Oxford, England
• Bologna
• Bergamo
• Prague, Czech Republic
• Varenna
• Bellagio
• Venice

(I should make a list about museums, churches, and art exhibits I've seen - but that will be too hard to do quickly off the top of my head!)

Cheeses I've eaten

• Valtellina Casera
• Piattone - Delebrio
• Rosa Camuno
• Bitto (I really liked this one)
• Robiola Bosina - Caseificio Dell'Alta Langa (my favorite)
• Toma
• Taleggio
• Some sort of goat cheese from a street market, but I didn't get its name
• A variety of unknown cheeses at restaurants and in the dining hall

Major Achievements, other than science

• Acquired a level of Italian that could be called 'conversational', in that I have had many conversations in Italian (a few lasting an hour or longer).
• Tried a variety of different regional foods and learned many aspects of Italian culture
• Learned to make two different pasta recipes
• Visited Eastern Europe
• Learned some history.  I think I actually understand why the churches in Milan look different than the churches in Venice, for instance!
• I am going home at the same level of debt (credit cards, student loans) that I started the trip with.

Goodbye San Raffaele

It has been sad to say goodbye to everyone at San Raffaele - and with the Easter holiday, there were goodbyes spread out all week as people left early.  The feeling of "leaving a place that feels like home and saying goodbye to everyone" is very familiar.  However, I am confident that I will return to Italy in the future - and hopefully see many people again!  There is a fall conference in October (in Naples) that I hope to attend, and I hope that I can return to San Raffaele next summer and during my post-tenure sabbatical.

Beyond the knowledge that I can come back, I've also cheered myself up by thinking about India and eating a mango.  I'm almost done with packing (at least, what I can do now), so I plan to walk around the city tonight and see the Duomo one last time.

San Raffaele has a small zoo, with monkeys.  I learned this on my penultimate day!

What I've learned about Italians

1. Italians really like dogs.  Dogs are everywhere.  There are a ton of dog-friendly parks in Milan, which is good, because I've seen what the sidewalks look like in cities without dog parks (Genova).  Dogs go in stores, dogs go in cafes, dogs go on the metro, some dogs appear to be living in bars/cafes.  They are most small dogs (for small apartments), but occasionally there are some big ones.  There is a dog clothing store closer to my apartment than a human clothing store, and I don't even live in a rich/yuppy part of town.
2. Italians care about San Remo, but not Eurovision.  This is perhaps on too small of a sample size... but some of my colleagues got the San Remo-winning song stuck in my head.  I found out it is the Italian representation at Eurovision this year and told my colleagues that I would watch and cheer for Italy.  However, they had no idea what Eurovision is.  Even after I explained it.  I might as well egregiously extrapolate: Italians care more about competition within Italy (and between Italian cities/regions) than between Italy and the rest of the world.
3. While many aspects of the driving are questionable, they are very respectful of pedestrian and cyclists.  I'm always careful about walking out in front of cars, even in crosswalks, but I find people always stop here.  Even when I'm not about to walk out into the street, cars stop.  I've seen others walk in front of cars that are going fairly fast, knowing the cars will stop.  People may drive way too fast on my tiny little residential road, but I've seen no issues with pedestrians or cyclists.  
4. Italians are (seemingly) not upset by people speaking their language badly.  Initially, everyone was very willing to speak to me in English at the hospital.  Once they found out I spoke some Italian, they spoke to me in Italian.  They don't seem to mind that my Italian is terrible.  I met up with my Airbnb host, and the same thing happened.  After I demonstrated an ability to hack my way through some Italian, we ended up speaking entirely in Italian.  Consistently, people have demonstrated patience with my poor Italian and occasional need to switch to English - not just people I know at the hospital, but in stores as well.  
5. They have a lot of rules, but few of them are taken very seriously.  It took months to sort out the legal paperwork for me to be at the hospital, but I never received a badge or e-mail or anything.  When using the Metro, one must scan the ticket both to enter and leave.  But, I've witnessed many people jump the turnstile (without any of the guards blinking an eye) and found that I could argue myself through the one time I made a mistake.  Recently they had us start signing the lunch tickets - I think to regulate the fact that many non-students are using them.  All of us non-students sign them... but nothing changed.  

What I've learned about myself in Italy

1. I can learn a language if I invest 3 hours a day.  A few weeks ago, I really felt like I was thinking in Italian and was happy with how quickly my language skills were progressing.  However, this past week has been much worse!  Before, I started my day with a 90 minute lesson and my brain started running in Italian.  I ended my day with (typically) 90 minutes or more of homework.  Now, the 10 minutes of review is nowhere enough!  It is like a part of my brain is no longer functioning.  At least I know what it takes for me to really get to a place where I can speak a language!
2. I'm a good scientist!  My graduate school experience was a bit unusual, and then I skipped the whole "post doc" step.  While it is no surprise that I have a bit of "imposter syndrome", I've lacked a certain confidence or exuberance for my research over the past few years.  The past 3 months have shown me that I have a strong skillset and I have good ideas.  I have read papers on a variety of new topics and even thought "well, since no one else has predicted/measured/calculated this value, perhaps I can calculate it from first principles".
3. I will never have free time.  This is my first attempt at "leave", and while I did the "go away" part correctly, I didn't quite nail my time management.  In particular, I really thought I would get much more done than I actually could!  On the bright side, I've been sleeping like a real human being.  One day I did the calculation, and my work schedule and Italian lessons (with homework) was justifiably taking up my entire day.  It isn't my fault my "side projects" weren't getting done, there are just not enough hours in the day.  
4. When I buy pastries for breakfast the next day, I eat them as soon as I get home.  Oops.

(I've leaving off the things I learned in the past, like my love of bitter Italian drinks, my love of Italian food, and my love of trashy Italian music)

Organizing Papers...

I really hate organizing papers.  I love Zotero, a program that manages references.  It syncs across multiple devices and interfaces very nicely with LaTeX.  I have used it for a long time, so I have a lot of references saved in it.

Unfortunately, I've never mastered organizing references beyond putting them in Zotero.  I made "collections", but not in a way that has been helpful or useful.  For instance, I made a subfolder in the collection (folder) that corresponds to my main research topic.  I called this folder "recent", because at one point those were new papers on the topic... a few years ago.

But beyond the references is the issue of the papers themselves.  In graduate school, I typically printed the most important papers.  This was especially useful for making notes by hand, my preferred method.  But, how do I organize those printed papers?  How do I remember if I printed it already?  And do I really want to take those big binders with me when I travel...

When I graduated I ran into a new problem: I could no longer access journals.  I didn't save many papers, because I could always go back to the online journal and access them there.  But I had that access through Stanford!  While Agnes Scott has access to some journals, I cannot directly access the majority of papers that I need for my research.  The library is able to get the papers for me, but there is a delay and a cost associated with it.

Now that I am at a major research institution, I have been able to access most papers that I need.  I've downloaded all of them, so that I could access them later.  But how do I organize them on my computer so that I can ever find them again?  The papers I already had typically ended up in many different places and I could rarely find what I needed.

The obvious solution is to create some sort of folder structure and then associate each file with the Zotero reference item.  This way I can use Zotero to search and organize, but then I still have a copy of the paper when I lose journal access.  Perfect!... except that at the hospital, my laptop cannot access the internet.  This means that I've been using other computers there.

While I've read (in many cases, skimmed) well-over 100 papers, I haven't saved any of them to Zotero.  Oops!  I have 5 days at the hospital left, so I really need to make good use of the journal access right now.  But it turns out, I hate this step.

I'm going through all of the PDFs that I have saved and am pulling up the journal website on my computer to save the reference to Zotero and then associate the file.  I have to do this at home, where I have internet.  But I'm also trying to look for the important references that I already have in Zotero that I don't have a file for and then getting the file.  But this has to happen at the hospital.  So while these two tasks are related, I can't do them in the same place.

I've sunk many hours of work into this already, and I am maybe not half-way done.  There are entire topics that I've forgone creating Zotero references for since the papers aren't associated with my current projects (but are important for a future project).  I really dislike this task and wish it wasn't needed.  Viva open access publishing!

Goodbye Venice

  My amazing trip to Venice has come to a close. 

Last night I went to the bookstore and found that it had been recommended to so many people, and it is considered one of the top 10 attractions in Venice.  I would have enjoyed it more had it not been quite so crowded.  There was almost an organizational structure, but it was mostly a pile of books on another pile of books... etc.  I didn't succeed in finding anything to buy, which is probably for the best.

After the bookshop I wandered into a section of Venice I hadn't been to yet.  There was one long road with many bars and small restaurants on the canal.  This seemed to be the place to drink beer as a 20-something year old, but I succeeded in finding a fairly quiet trattoria and had a nice dinner on the canal.  Of course, I was quite cold by the end and was a bit concerned about my cell phone battery lasting me long enough to find my way home.  I succeeded, of course, and was happy to have a good night's sleep after walking over 10 miles that day.

Today I had two goals: (1) see St Mark's Basilica and (2) to La Fenice.  Since it was Sunday, I couldn't get into St. Mark's until after 2 PM.  Hence, I started with La Fenice.  It is Venice's opera house, and therefore one of the most important opera houses in the world.  It was absolutely beautiful - and there was a nice audioguide walking us through the history.  While the opera house is well over 100 years old, it had a major fire in the 1800's and another in the 1990's.  Hence, it is newly refurbished - but a serious attempt was made to restore it to the original condition.  Maybe one shouldn't start off by naming a building after a creature that repeatedly catches fire (fenice=pheonix).

After the Opera House I still had a few hours to spare before St. Marks would open.  I hopped on the water bus with the intent to a stop or two past St. Marks to see a new part of Venice.  I didn't know what I would find, but I hoped to get a reasonably good lunch farther from the main tourist area. 

The first thing I found was the Maritime Museum, which appeared to be closed.  However, there was a "ship's pavilion" that was open - and that was amazing.  They had a range of boats on display, including Venician canal/lagoon boats, military boats, and fishing boats.  They had the steam room of a large freighter - reading the sign, I learned this was the ship where Marconi perfected his radio techniques!  Neat!  I love boats, as do the Venicians. 

After the big room-of-boats, I found a Sicilian restaurant for lunch.  It was good and took the right amount of time.  I got to St. Mark's square just as the church was opening.  The Basilica is big and the inside is covered in phenomenal mosaic work.  I think this is the style that the Stanford Church was trying to copy!  The treasury was filled with amazing Byzantine treasures and an incredible array of relics.  However, the main area of the church was very crowded - there was only a single path for tourists to snake through, so it was hard to stop and get a really good luck at things.

However, the Basilica has a huge museum upstairs that provides amazing views (close up!) of many of the mosaics.  It was fairly empty, including the loggia that overlooks the square.  I enjoyed having more space and time to enjoy the church, which is certainly on the same level as Milan's duomo, but in a very different style. 

Finally I wandered back to the hotel, getting back a bit earlier than necessary.  I headed down the Piazza and discovered a NASA/ESA-sponsored art exhibit!  Pictures from Hubble were mixed with space-inspired Italian artwork (made for the exhibition).  It felt like a very poetic way to end my trip to Venice, an appropriate symbol of the synthesis of my time in Italy: beautiful science and beautiful Italy.  

Venice! Che bella!

I've spent my day touring churches, as I typically do.  I woke up to church bells and was very thankful for the goodnight's sleep that I got.  After a shower and breakfast, I picked a church and headed on my way.  It was lovely, but I think I am starting to get "churched out" after 3 months of the world's most beautiful churches.  This church had a lot of really great art, including a work by Donatello, work by Titian, and Titian's tomb.  Obviously I don't know very much about art, so I don't fully appreciate the subtleties in the different Italian paintings of religious iconography.

I ended up eating lunch at a trattoria that had been recommended by the receptionist at my hotel.  I had lasagna with fish, mostly because I had no idea what to expect.  It was good!  The sauce was a creamy-bechamel that has seafood infused throughout (think creamy chowder), rather than big chunks.  From there, I walked past the Peggy Guggenheim collection and along the water.  At there end there was a beautiful view of a variety of islands, St Mark's square, and San Giorgio - a monastic compound taking up almost the entirely of an island. 

I hopped on the water bus and went to San Giorgio.  The church was ok, but there was a belltower with incredible views.  Unfortunately, it was required to take the elevator - I didn't get to climb the stairs like normal.  Next to the monastery is the Venice Sailing Club (I think) and I oggled the sailboats for awhile.  If I won a billion dollars, it would be very tempting to live on a sailboat here.

I left the tranquility of San Giorgio and took the water bus to St Marks Square: tourist central.  I did a bit of shopping, saw a minor church, and then went to the San Zachary church.  This place was quite interesting - while other churches have paintings on the walls, this church has huge oil paintings completely filling the walls.  They also have an old crypt, which is half-filled with water. 

Strangely, the highlight of my day was seeing a big jellyfish in a canal.  I feel quite bad for it - I'm not sure that jellyfish would want to be in the canals of Venice.  It was eye-opening for me to realize that these canals must be salt-water since the Adriatic Sea is right  there.  These aren't like the canals back in Milan...

With my time in Europe nearing an end, I am going into gift-purchasing mode.  Today, I bought a suitcase-worth of gifts (and they weren't all for me...).  Given that I was already worried about how I was getting things home, I also bought a suitcase.  I need it to just get things back to Milan, but I had planned for some time to buy a European-sized suitcase.  I may have some ridiculous baggage fees in my future, and I'm still not sure I will have enough space!

I'm back at the hotel, letting my cell phone charge and enjoying a pot of tea.  The breakfast room also doubles as a coffee/tea room in the afternoon.  While espresso isn't available, I can sit and have tea and pastries.  I will head back out soon to wander the city more.  Most churches are going be closed, so I don't know how many more I will see.  I do want to see St Marks, which is incredibly impressive from the outside.  Unfortunately, it is in an ocean of tourists.  If I can't get in today, I will make it a priority to go tomorrow.  Otherwise, I do just want to wander and let myself get lost.  It was a pain to navigate the alleys when I had a lot of shopping (and a suitcase...) but it is a pleasure when unburdened.  The challenge will not be to do much more shopping!  There are so many interesting shops here (masks, jewelry, art, glass, paper, leather goods...) and I haven't yet made it to the recommended bookstore.  I can't buy much more before I need a second suitcase just to get back to Milan!

Best for Last!

I am so glad that Venice is the last city I am seeing in Italy.  I've been here for about 4 hours, but my brain still hasn't accepted this place.  I've seen old and beautiful Italian cities, but this is certainly a different category.  I see why everyone talks about it the way they do - Bologna is beautiful, Genova is historic, Milan has a neat church... but Venice is Venice.

The train ride in was interesting.  The train was incredibly hot - I was so happy I had bought a bottle of water before boarding.  I was genuinely concerned that I was going to be ill from the heat.  I watched the mountains and tried to sleep a little.  I ended up feeling inspired to start the paper that I plan to write next week.  I was in the midst of typing as we left the penultimate station and started crossing the water.  Venice isn't a coastal city - it is islands.  So, the train passed sailboats on its way into the station.

The station itself is right on the grand canal.  I paid for a 2-day transit pass (which costs as much as a Monthly transit pass in Milan) and got on one of the water buses.  It was neat!  There were a few ways to get to my hotel - I chose the path that had the longest boat ride, which took me through the majority of the grand canal.  I felt a little pressed for time since the hotel reception desk was slated to close within 30 minutes of my expected arrival, so I couldn't explore on my way to the hotel.

The guidebooks warn about getting lost in Venice, and I took them seriously after my experience in Genova.  I thought I was doing ok, following the map provided by the hotel, until I realized that I had actually gone in a circle.  My cell phone struggles to know exactly where I am, but Google maps does an excellent job with street names and detailed walking directions.  Google got me the rest of the way to the hotel.

I'm staying at a very small, boutique-style hotel - I think there are about 8 rooms total.  Venice hotels have a reputation for being small, dirty, and expensive - but this one is amazing!  The location is good, the price was reasonable, and the room/hotel is very nice.  A couple were checking in before me - it was interesting to listen to the hotel employee tell them about places in Venice.  They spoke Spanish, so the employee was speaking 95% Italian with a few Spanish words thrown in.  When it was my turn I started the conversation in Italian, but he switched to English.  After a bit - my responses and questions were in Italian - he switched to Italian.   I knew I picked a good place when the receptionist told me (out of nowhere) about a great used bookstore and the hotel had left books (along with chocolates) on the bed!

My blood sugar was crashing from eating light today and the train ride, so I knew I needed to head out and find dinner.  The receptionist had recommended a few restaurants, but I knew that reservations were probably needed.  I opted for the easy thing and found an easy-to-get-to restaurant that I could reserve online. 

I again took a water bus (I only needed to get across the canal) and tried to find the restaurant... This time Google was no help.  Luckily, I had left very early and succeeded in wandering in circles until I found it.  I had an amazing fish dinner and succeeded in speaking in Italian the entire time.  The waiter even asked me where I am from, where I learned Italian, etc. 

After dinner I decided to take my time and wander through the city and the way back.  Multiple people have recommended to see the canal at night and to let myself get lost in the alleys.  However, maybe these two things weren't supposed to go together!  Many of the small alleys (there are no cars here, so everything is pedestrian-scale) dead end at canals.  And there are also many passageways under buildings - some are not well lit.  At one point I almost walked right into the canal!  I'm sure I wouldn't have been the first.

On top of all of the other amazing things here, the night sky is incredible.  The stars aren't quite at a "middle of nowhere" level, but I cannot even remember seeing stars in any of the cities I have visited so far.

I still haven't planned what I am going to see and do the next 2 days - there are more possibilities than I can possibly fit in.  So far, I do regret being so tired.  I only got about 5 hours of sleep last night - I had gone to dinner with some colleagues from the hospital.  It was fun, but I hadn't appreciated that Italian dinners could go to midnight.  It was a bit rough to get up for my 7:30 AM Italian lesson!  So, I need to get some sleep tonight, but I do wish that I could stay out late (wandering around) and get up bright and early. 

Venice has already brought me one heartache - my favorite artist (Damien Hirst) has a new major installation project here.  Unfortunately, it opens next weekend.  While I hadn't wanted to travel next weekend, I am tempted to come back to see it.  It opens on Sunday, which is more difficult.  I had looked to see if any of the galleries or museums in Milan had anything from Hirst - while not currently, he previously had a piece in the Fondazione Prada.  While his work was no longer there, I loved Fondazione Prada! 

Off to bed for me - I'm excited for what tomorrow will bring.   Probably more boat rides, some fancy churches, and lots of Italian-speaking!  

Finally, Venice!

I'm about to catch a train and head to Venice.  I have this evening in Venice and all of Saturday and Sunday.  Originally it looked like there would be rain this weekend, but it has fallen off the forecast now.  It has been an incredibly busy week, so I haven't succeeded in planning any aspect of the trip (other than hotel and train).  I have an hour before I head to the train station, so I now will "cram" from my guide book.

My trip to Italy is drawing to a close, which is a strange feeling (and which my mind sets to the song "Gethsemane (I only want to say)" from Jesus Christ Superstar).  2 weeks would be a long time for a vacation, but 2 weeks from a major move is not a long time!  This feels much more like the second situation: I need to eat the food stored up in the fridge and cabinets, figure out packing, and wrap up projects at work.  I had my last Italian lesson this morning, and this trip to Venice will be my last big trip.  I might do a day trip next weekend, but I think I will have too much to wrap up to attempt more.

Obviously I'm excited about Venice, but my mind is largely on work right now.  I made some great progress on my primary project over the past few days, but I am still a few simulations from seeing whether everything is working very well or only somewhat working.  My other collaboration has reached the point of a paper draft - I plan to work on my section on the train to Venice.   In addition to these two projects (near the end stages), there are 2 more simulation project for me to get started on!

My Italian collaborator is now back at the hospital and we had an incredibly productive conversation this week.  It turns out that he and I have both had an interest in the same (very specific) idea for some time.  It would be completely novel, and we both had some specific suggestions for different things to try.  I've written an (unsuccessful) grant application on it before, but in our conversation we ended up on a modified idea that I am fairly excited about.  I'm eager to get started on the simulations - the Monte Carlo data would serve as the initial data in a future grant application.

I won't be taking my laptop to Venice (in order to work on simulations...) since past trips have shown me that I do stop thinking about work once I get on the train to somewhere exciting.  But it is nice to have research going so well.  Not only do I think I can have a second paper submitted before I leave Italy, but we have 2 major collaborative projects going where my simulations will be paired with experiments done in Italy.  Along the way we've encountered some interesting questions that I'd like to explore in more detail.  One would be a stand-alone simulation project that would certainly yield a paper - and that could be really good for an undergraduate student to work on!

It is nice to have so much promising science to think about, but I better start planning my Venice trip... poor me! (-:

Back to Lake Como...

While I didn't feel up for traveling this weekend, the pope is visiting Milan.  I expected that this would bring crowds and chaos and that I wouldn't want to head into the city.  Faced with staying at home all weekend, I looked into heading into the mountains... after some recommendations from my Italian instructor, I decided to stay on Lake Como and booked a hotel from my cell phone.

I'm currently in Varenna, which is half-way up the lake.  I left work a little early and was able to see the scenery from the train (before the sun set).  After checking in to my hotel, I wandered the streets.  I love ancient mountainside towns - it is difficult to tell what paths are meant to be roads and what ones are sidwalks/alleys... all of which incorporate stairs!  My plan for tomorrow is to take a ferry to Bellagio.  There are villas with beautiful gardens both here in Varenna and in Bellagio - and the weather is supposed to be 70 degrees.  It is supposed to begin raining tomorrow evening, but I hope to have a nice day tomorrow. 

The last time I was on Lake Como, I was in Lecco in January and it was freezing!  Now there are flowers in bloom, even though I can stll see some snow on the more distant mountains.  Tourist season begins tomorrow - yet everything felt very empty here, which was a bit surprising for a Friday evening.  There are some tourists around - British, American, Russian.  Hopefully things will still be quiet and peaceful tomorrow.

I'm looking forward to a relaxing day tomorrow - I've been exhausted all week, but the magical combination of mountains, lake, and ancient streets should re-energize me!

I've earned a break!

I started my paper on Saturday and made good progress sitting in a wonderful cafe (that caters for foreigners who want to work in a cafe).  On Monday I sent the first draft to my collaborators and on Tuesday I sent the next draft... which was close to a "final" version.  I ended up staying until almost 8 PM in order to get it done, and there were a final few details I wasn't happy with.

With a few final e-mail exchanges yesterday and today (Thursday), the paper has been submitted!  We'll see what the reviewers say.  I'm very happy to have turned it around so fast and to have it be relatively "easy" compared to past papers.  It still might get rejected, but we'll have to see why, if that is the case.  We might need to expand the data and make it a bigger paper, for instance.

After submitting the paper, I tackled the core of the simulation that is supposed to be my primary project.  I've been struggling with a very specific aspect, but finally had a few breakthroughs yesterday and today.  My breakthroughs actually involved reading papers on chicken meat.  I have some strange Google Scholar searchers in my history now.  So while I told my colleague (yesterday) that it might take me a few weeks to run a certain simulation, I actually was able to run it today.  I have data - in a way, I'm done!

Part of me feels like I'm really on a role with this simulation work (which is why I'm still going at 9 PM...), but I'd also like to take a break.  Luckily, a friend is coming to visit for a few days!  This might actually be my favorite weekend of the whole trip.  I get to show someone around Milan like it is "my" city.  Having a friend here means that I can do a bunch of things that are super awkward for me to do on my own, like go in fancy stores or go out to dinner.

With a month left of my trip, I've submitted a paper and made great progress on a number of my research projects.  My Italian is vastly improved and I've done a bit of traveling.  I even had one of my Italian colleagues compliment my outfit today, so that might be my biggest achievement.  Now I get to have a fun few days and wait for the response on the paper!

Cimitero Monumentale: Pictures of one particular family grave

I spent a few hours back at Cimitero Monumentale today and managed to see just about all of it.  I even saw a cat and some lizards!  Most importantly though, I saw this:

I'm not entirely sure if this is information on how to contact the aliens, or a note for when the aliens land.  Either way, Dan Brown should stop making things up and just write all of his books about Cimitero Monumentale.

A Very Successful Saturday Morning...

My haircut went well.  I did feel bad for the stylist, who was excellent but didn't speak English.  I think I was able to communicate all of the important things and certainly waked out with better hair!

The internet is a magical thing.  When I search for things in Milan (or other cities when I am traveling) I use Italian or English based on what type of information I want.  If I want to know the mass schedule for a church, I search for that in Italian - it will take me to the official page fastest.  But when I want tourist-type info, I look in English.  So, it occured to me that I could search for "best cafes to work at in Milan" and that I could find American-style places.  There are many great places in Milan!  Many of them aren't like coffeeshops in the US, but some of them are much better.

I am currently in a place called "Coffice" where you pay an hourly rate that includes a pastry/snack buffett and unlimited coffee/water/tea.  The internet is great!  I've been having more and more problems with the internet at my apartment, so simply having good WiFi is worth the cost itself.  However, I think the rate that I drink coffee/tea and eat pastries also makes this a really good deal.  I would come back frequently, except it is on the other side of the city!  There is a cafe called Upcycle that is more convenient that I will check out next time.

Not only am I happy with the location I found,  but this is also the first time I've tried to do serious work on my tablet.  I bought the tablet for this trip but I haven't used it as much as I expected.  I am giving it a chance, and it is really shining!  Typically I write all of my documents/paper/presentations/etc in LaTeX, but the plan is to submit this paper to a journal that doesn't except LaTeX.  I'm typing the draft in a Google Doc.  Using Dropbox I can refer back to the papers and code that I have been working with on my "real" laptop.  I'm happy that this is working - and that I don't need to haul my gigantic laptop around to do a little work.

Of course, I am much more comfortable working in Linux than in Android.  Within an hours, I decided I needed emacs (a text editor).  It is what I use for everything, and the Dropbox text editor just wasn't good enough for looking at code.  So, I've installed a terminal program and emacs on my tablet.   Now I just need to figure out how to make the Dropbox App and the Terminal App talk to eachother...

Upcoming Adventures!

The longer I am here, the more tame my adventures are becoming.  Mopping my floor has become much more frequent, especially when I have a minor cooking failure and cover my kitchen in splattered oil.

Tomorrow I am taking the fast train to Verona, where I will meet with two collaborators.  We are discussing the project that was supposed to be my primary focus, but which has made the least progress.  Hopefully meeting with them in person will help!  I'm not sure if the lack of progress is because the project depended on me pushing it forward (and I've invested my time on other projects) or if it is a communication issue.

Obviously, it would be silly to take an hour-long trainride for a single meeting, so I'm spending most of the day sight-seeing in Verona.  I've also printed some papers out to read on the train.  I feel so much like an Italian Business-person: taking the Frecciarossa to another city for a meeting and working on the way.  I'm even sitting in one of the fancier cars!

Because of the Verona trip and a late-evening meeting on Friday, I don't have any exciting travel planned for the weekend.  However, my biggest adventure yet is scheduled: getting a haircut!  This has been a few days in the making, but I hadn't yet succeeded in entering a salon to make an appointment.  I asked a colleague for a salon recommendation today, and she even called and made the appointment for me.  First thing Saturday morning, I will get a haircut!  Yay!

Why is getting a haircut such an adventure?  Well, I have no idea if the stylist will speak English or not.  My colleague did not warn them about my poor Italian skills when making the appointment.  I know that I am not the easiest salon client in the US, given that I know very little about the terminology for things and I am fairly flexible about what I want.  Stylists never quite know what to do with me.  Am I really as flexible as I claim to be?  How adventurous should they be?  What do I actually mean by "short"?  I am not too worried for my haircut, as much as I feel bad for the stylist who will be communicating with me Saturday morning.

After the haircut, I don't quite have plans.  I could take a train to one of the nearby towns, spend the day in a museum in Milan... or work. I'm at the point where I can write up one of the projects I've been working on, and I am tempted to try to write the paper in one day (it is a short paper).  This would be more tempting if I had somewhere nice to go and work at, rather than sitting in my apartment.  The places where one drinks coffee in Italy are not Starbucks-esque, where one sits and works for hours by oneself.  

Cenacolo!

Yesterday I went and saw DaVinci's Last Supper (called Cenacolo in Italian).  Given that it is painted on a wall, it is in a stand-alone museum.  It is somewhat impossible to get tickets.  Groups of 25 people are let in for 15 minutes, so the number of tickets are exactly specified.  They release 3 months of tickets at a time, which are not that affordable, but immediately snatched up.

Given that I hadn't jumped on getting a ticket when they were released, my only option was to buy a ticket through one of the tour companies in Milan.  Either you can book a tour that includes the Last Supper, or you can buy a spare ticket to only the Last Supper.  The tour companies only release the tickets that haven't been bough for full tours at the last minute...

I bought a last-minute ticket (which has a bit of a markup) and took the afternoon off.  The picture was painted on the wall of what became the refractory of a monastery that was (is?) associated with Santa Maria delle Grazie.  The church itself, which I looked at beforehand, was very lovely.  (As far as I can tell, all churches in Europe are lovely)

The Last Supper has an interesting story.  Because of the experimental technique used, it degraded more quickly that normal frescoes.  The attempts at "fixing" it over the centuries were mostly bad, so the most recent restoration (lasting 22 years) mostly removed all of them.  The goal wasn't to make the image look "like new", but to return as much of it as possible to Da Vinci's original work.

In order to further preserve it, the room has been sealed off and carefully temperature and humidity controlled.  There are a series of airlocks to enter the room, which is why visits are so limited.  There is another amazing fresco in the same room, but that gets a lot less attention (and was not by Da Vinci).

The building itself was bombed - directly - during WWII.  Um, by Allied bombers... The building was destroyed, but the frescoed wall had been protected by scaffolding and sandbags.  Yay Italy, saving the art!  Booo, Americans, bombing the art!  In the picture below, the bright white is the plaster of the new building constructed around the wall.

Anyways, The Last Supper was incredible.  It is very big, which is part of why it makes such an impression.  It is a whole wall... and a big wall.  It really does look 500 years old, but it is also more clearly a masterpiece than other old frescoes that I've seen.

Like Jesus Chris Superstar, but with less singing.

For scale, the dark rectangle under Jesus is a door that the monks added.  It has been since bricked up, but the monks seriously cut a chunk out of the art to add a door.

A few pictures from Prague

The Spanish Synagogue - incredibly beautiful.  In the Jewish Quarter of Prague.

Detail of Spanish Synagogue.

At the Old-New Synagogue, which was built in 1270.  It is the oldest Syanagogue in Eastern Europe (and possibly all of Europe).

Old Town Square and Tyn Church.

St Vitus Cathedral, surrounded by the Prague Castle.

Wenceslas Chapel in St. Vitus.  The walls are made of precious stone.

The stained glass in this cathedral was especially stunning, and my camera cannot do it justice.

Nice window, but also check out the ceiling!

One outside view of the St. Vitus Cathedral.

View from the castle.  Note the communist TV tower in the background.  The green dome is at the Church of St. Nicholas - where I later climbed the belltower.

Strahovsky Library, at an old monastery (near the castle).  

Picture of the Charles Bridge, from the belltower at the Church of St. Nicholas.

Random building in Prague.  This is how fancy random building are - people probably live here.  Perhaps insurance is sold of out it.

The church shown here isn't anything special - just the random small church you find throughout the city that isn't in the guidebooks.  Check out the fancy-looking building on the right: again, some random un-notable building.

Hardest thing so far: Cleaning

There have been a number of things I have done this trip that make it clear I'm "living" here, and not simply on vacation.  First, I got an Italian SIM card and a monthly pass to the Metro.  I've never had a monthly Metro pass anywhere before!  I've listed my address (here) on a few forms.  I've done lots of laundry in the apartment, and even got dry cleaning done.

Finally, today, I cleaned the apartment.  Well, I tried.  The entire apartment is in tile, which means I needed to mop.  I knew where the mop was, but I couldn't figure out what to add to the water.  There are a variety of cleaning products, but none of them seemed mop-appropriate.  I went with dish detergent... which seems to have worked ok. 

I know mopping shouldn't be ridiculously hard, but this was.  I'm used to only mopping small areas, and I typically use a swiffer.  So easy.  The last time I needed to mop a large area, it was when I worked in retail in High School!  Mopping the entire apartment meant I had to be clever about moving furniture from one room to another and doing parts at a time.  It took hours, which is part of why I've lived here for 6 weeks without mopping yet.  In Atlanta, I typically vacuum at least once a week.

Without cats, perhaps I wouldn't need to clean frequently here, right?  Oh my gosh, no.  I couldn't understand why dust built up so quickly here and why there was so much of it.  But... the heating here is from radiators.  In the US, I've always had central heating - so as air circulates, the filters on the HVAC system grab a lot of the particles in the air.  Here, it all settles to the ground.  Dust bunnies appear overnight.

I clearly need to mop more frequently, but it is hard to find the time.  I decided to stay in Milan this weekend since it is Carnevale here - but it is pouring down rain, so I might not actually leave the apartment tody.  I felt exhausted yesterday, and actually went to bed around 7:30 PM (!?).  This meant I could sleep as much as I wanted, set no alarm... and still get up before 9 AM.  I'm happy that I have enough time to both do a massive amount of cleaning and to get some work done.

At least I know myself...

A few people teased me for bringing small baggies of spices with me to Italy.  Interestingly, there has been a spice (mustard seeds) that I didn't bring with me and that the local supermarket doesn't have.  Many of the spices I brought I used commonly (whole cumin, fennel), but I also brought fenugreek leaves.

My movitation was thus: one day I will be hungry and not know what to cook, but I will have fenugreek leaves.  I will look up a recipe that uses fenugreek and I will make it.

That day was two days ago.  My fenugreek leaves are gone and I made a very tasty Indian bean dish.  Of course, the fenugreek leaves (purchased at an Indian market in Georgia) and other seasonings were the only legitimate "Indian" part of it.  I used canellini beans and an Italian type of flatbread (piadina).

I'm terrified of volcanos

Apparently Mt. Etna, in Sicily, is erupting.  It is an active volcano, so this isn't particularly noteworthy.  The headline is that this is the "first time this year" it has erupted - but we aren't yet 25% through the year.

Let it be said that I am nowhere near the volcano, nor will I go anywhere close to it.  There is water between Sicily and me (ie, the rest of Italy) and I plan to keep it that way.  I had been thinking of flying to the South of Italy (but still on the right side of that protective water...) but I might not, if Etna is still erupting.

I may climb up bell/church/castle towers, despite my fear of heights.  However, that is only because I can rationalize that if the tower has survived however many hundreds of years, it is not going to suddenly collapse.  Rationally, volcanos are terrifying.  Liquid rock travels in the direction opposite of gravity - clearly all rules have been broken and I should stay very far away.  Hence: no need to worry about me, I've taken care of it!

Prague, Days 2 and 3

Yesterday I crossed the river and went up to the castle.  I didn't get there as early as my guidebook recommended, but I also took a different tram and ended up coming in the back entrance - luckily this meant there was no line to go through security.  The castle itself is amazing, but the best feature is the St. Vitrus cathedral.  Part of it is incredibly old, but part of it was finished in the beginning of the 1900's, so there is some amazing stained glass windows in a modern style.

Near the castle is an old monastery, which had an incredible library.  Unsurprisingly, I visited the library.  You can only view the rooms from the door, unless you book a private tour ahead of time.  If/when I come back to Prague in the future, I will make sure to do that!  Also, I bought some monastery-made herbal tea at the library gift shop...  I am very proud of myself every time that I do not buy tea somewhere, but eventually I give in.  And Prague is an amazing city for tea!

Today was my last day in Prague - I had a few major sights left, but had to battle with things being closed on Sunday.  I had 3 major things on my to-do list for today: first up, an Alchemy museum.  Interestingly, this wasn't mentioned in my guidebook, but it was praised by the guide to my Jewish Museum tour.  Basically, there was an old (circa 800) house in the Jewish quarter that had somehow survived... and then during the flood in 2002, a huge hole opened up in the road in front of it.  Inside was an alchemy lab, along with tunnels leading all over the city.  The rest of the stories told would be hard to believe, if I wasn't standing underground... in an alchemy lab.  The museum only opened in 2012, and was really so awesome that it is difficult for me to believe it.  

Returning to the Day 1 theme of "history shows everything is terrible", I then went to a museum dedicated to the Heros of the Heydrich Terror.  This is in a crypt of an Orthodox cathedral, further away from the tourist area.  The museum traces out a little bit of WWII history, focusing on the mission of two Czech paratroopers (trained by the British) who came to Prague to assassinate Reinhard Heydrich.  They were successful, but thousands of Czechs - including an entire town - were subsequently executed.  The paratroopers, and other Czech resistance fighters, had been hiding in the crypt of this church.  They were betrayed and a major gun fight occured here - they either died from Nazi bullets or their own.  The church wall is one of many places in Prague where you can see where an oppressive government murdered people.

I then headed to the Charles Bridge, which has a variety of lovely statues and many, many tourists.  This put me into the Little Quarter, on the other side of the river - and I realized why 3 days is the minimum to "do Prague".  I had skipped a number of major sights in the parts of the city I had been in already, and here was another huge chunk of the historic/tourist city I hadn't seen yet!  I wandered a bit and found a watchtower to climb.  The lower floors were used as living quarters for the watchman, and there were nice historical displays set up there.  I thought I had reached the "top" a few times, but then there kept being more stairs.  Not only did the actual top level provide beautiful views, but it was used for communist spying.    

Compared to my usual travel style, I've seen the inside of very few churches in Prague.  They have typically either been closed, or in the process of religious services.  Luckily, The Chuch of St Nicholas (next to the tower) was open.  This church was incredible - especially the marble.  My brain struggles to except that stone can actually look like that, and that the walls are not just covered in some sort of laminate.  I'm finally starting to pick up on some architectural terms and styles.  This church was definitely Baroque - Prague has many Baroque churches, which I rarely see in Italy.

At this point, my "to do" list was wrapped up.  I tried, once more, to get into the Tyn church... but it was closed.  I stopped in the ticket office next to it and bought a ticket for a music concert.  Many of the churches and historic buildings have classical music concerts - there probably half a dozen every day.  I picked the concert that involved a pipe organ and Bach's Tocatta and Fugue in D minor.  The concert was in a church I hadn't found yet, and I had a little over an hour to get there.  I swung by St. James' church and found it open for the first time (it was also Baroque), and then started weaving through some very touristy streets until I got to St. Giles' cathedral.

The concert was lovely, and I'm very glad I did it.  Half of the songs were on pipe organ, the other were string quartet.  All of the musicians were very talented, and the program was the "Classical Music Greatest Hits" type of program that is frequently done here.  I don't need to be a hipster when it comes to classical music, I enjoy Mozart and Bach.  The church was a bit smaller than some of the others, also Baroque, and was used in scenes in the movie Amadeus.  Luckily, they were aware of how cold the church is and provided blankets and heated pads on the pews (which date from the 1600s).

Prague has been incredible.  Much of the touristy parts feel like Disney Land - there are lines, and too many people, and a feeling that one must see/do/eat all there is.  I've heard tours given in French, Italian, Spanish, English, and many Slavic languages that I cannot distinguish.  As ridiculous as the crowds are (and it is freezing out!), it is hard to fathom it being any other way.  Even beyond the castles and churches, every single building is beautiful.  I'm not particularly into architecture (and know nothing about it), but I could spend days simply wandering around and looking up at the buildings.

At some point I will post some pictures, and likely reflect a little more on Prague.  I'm not going to assume I "know" Eastern Europe after seeing only one city, but this has (in part) satisfied my desire to see Eastern Europe.  I've seen evidence and history from WWII in France and Italy, but not like here.  I've gone in churches from Christian denominations that I've never heard of before, sometimes the same church being passed through different religious groups.  I still can't quite understand how Prague can be what it is right now, when 3 decades ago communist tanks rolled through the streets.

This was a very good trip, but it is time to return to Milan and get back to work.  While being here, I've felt a bit disconnected from everything in Italy (maybe due to the language change) and have thought a lot about what the months after my leave will bring.  I'm halfway through my time in Europe, but Prague feels like the grand finale.  I will certainly do a little more traveling, but I don't know if I can do another city. 

Prague, Day 1: The Holocaust and Communism

My goal for today was to see the Jewish Quarter, including touring the Synagogues.  This included doing my first "tour" with a guide, offered through the Jewish Museum.  The tour started at 10:30... and went until 2 PM.  I'm very glad that I did the tour, as I learned a lot of history.  It actually felt like we went very fast through each of the Synagogues - some of which are converted to museums, some of which are still active (and very beautiful).  Had I been on my own, I probably would have spent much more time in the first one or two and then not gotten much out of the later ones.  The tour also included the Jewish Cemetery, which was amazing.

Obviously, any discussion of Jews in the Czech Republic will include a lot of discussion about the Holocaust.  But the emotional impact of it goes much deeper than reading Anne Frank's Diary or anything we do in the US.  At one of the Synagogues, the walls have the names of the Czech Jews who died in the concentration camps.  Tens of thousands of names, covering the entire Synagogue.  They play an audio recording of the names being read and prayers sung.  In the part of the second floor where there aren't names, there is an exhibit of pictures drawn by children in one of the concentration camps.

Outside of the Holocaust, Jewish history in Prague isn't very happy.  Much as I don't know any European history (other than the wars that the US was part of), I didn't know how limited the rights of Jews were in Europe, long before the Nazis existed.  Over the past few hundred years there were multiple stories of the Jews in Prague being massacred.  Occasionally the king would be unhappy about it, but that was because the Jews were considered property (ie, slaves) of the king.  And after the Holocaust, the Communists had many horrible policies.  Jewish gravestones were cut into pieces to be used as cobblestones, for instance.

After the tour, I was emotionally drained and very hungry.  I managed to find a pizza place - ironically, my breakfast had also been at an Italian restaurant.   I have now had more sit-down Italian meals in Prague than I have in Milan!  After lunch, I headed to the Old Town Square, which is tourist-central.  The touristy parts of Prague are like Disney World on a busy day.  And it is winter and a weekday here!  I cannot fathom how crowded it gets here during peak season.  I took in a few of the Tourist sights and then wandered back to the hotel to charge my phone and have a cup of tea.

Later in the afternoon I headed out to Wenceslas Square and went to the Museum of Communism.  Again, I don't know any European History.  I had read a bit (in the guide book) about the Velvet Revolution, but I hadn't fully appreciated the arc of Communism in Czeckloslovakia.  It is jarring to understand the timeline - I was alive for parts of it.  There is video footage (shown there) of most of it.  Most of the protests - and police beatings of the protestors - took place in Wenceslas Square.  The videos showed Russian tanks rolling through the streets I had just walked on.

Throughout the museum, I couldn't help but compare the propaganda and political discourse to what is currently happening in the US.  In particular, the focus on the celebrating the worker and vilifying those who traditionally held power (including academics and artists).  It is strange to see similarities between Communist propaganda and the campaign discourse of a "billionaire" capitalist.  However, there were plenty of instances where the Communists did really terrible things that are not happening in the US.  Watching the video of the protests - and violent policy and military crackdown - my first thought was that it isn't like that in the US.  Certainly there were not tanks at the Women's Marches!  But, I then thought of the protests (usually reported as "riots") on inauguration day and that have been occuring throughout the country for the past few years related to the police murders of unarmed black men.  Quick privilege check: which protests you think of first changes the amount of freedom (...from violent police retaliation) you feel in the US.

After that, I headed to a lovely tea shop.  On the way, it started precipitating a bit - I'm willing to call it snow, though it may have been "ice pellets" or some such silliness.  I got snowed on in Prague!  I've been in many lovely tea cafes, but I think this is the best one I've ever been in.  It was exceedingly challenging to pick which tea to drink.  I reflected on whether a tea shop like this could possibly exist somewhere in the metro-Atlanta area and that I've just never found it.  After the day of touring I had, it was wonderful to just sit and think for some time (with an amazing oolong tea).  I also dug in to my guide book a bit more...     

I roamed the city a bit more, thinking about dinner.  I wasn't particularly hungry, but it was 8:30 PM.  I wasn't up for something as overwhelming as a pub or a fancy sit-down meal, so I got a take-out quesadilla and went back to my hotel.  I thought I might head back out for a beer... but the warmth of my room and the joy of not being on my feet has gotten to me.  I think I had an excellent, if intense, day and I am glad I have two more full days to see Prague!

In Prague!

I just arrived to Prague!  While my past trips involved staying at super fancy hotels, I went with something cheaper this time since it was a few days.  I'm very pleased - it is an "apartment" style hotel, so there is a kitchenette and a lot of space.  I had a little bit of an adventure getting here - I had planned to take a specific airport bus.  The internet had said it ran until 10, but it stopped at 9 PM... which I found out about at 9:05 PM.  I went with plan B - take a city bus.  Unfortunately, I had less information written down on the needed transfer, but it worked out.  I couldn't find the tram I had planned to take, so I hopped on the subway.  Luckily, I had saved "offline" Google maps of the area so I could plan a new path to the hotel.  I think my phone company charges by the day, when I used it in foreign countries, so I planned to not turn on the mobile data today. 

So far, everything is going well.  I have wifi, my Italian-style electrical plug work in the sockets here, and there is a hot water kettle for tea.  I haven't gotten to see/do anything yet, but the language barrier is shockingly noticeable.  It is one step up from when I was in Israel, since I at least know the characters they use.  I hope to practice a few words (please, sorry, thank you) to use while I am here. 

I do know one word of the Czech language already - the word for "hi" sounds like "ahoy".  This is easy to remember, because a joke is made about it in the Tom Stoppard play "Rock'n'Roll", which is about the Velvet Revolution.  A British character makes a remark along the lines of, "It is a nation of sailors, or at least sounds like it".  Hopefully I find ways to remember a few more words, or otherwise I will probably (accidentally) end up speaking Italian.  It is at least a European language, right?  I hate to be the American who walks up to people in a foreign country and immediately speaks English.  Somehow speaking Italian seems better...

Thoughts on being a student

I've frequently thought that everyone becomes a better student after they have had to teach something.  Now I am thinking that the converse is true - being a student might help me be a better teacher.  Unfortunately, I'm not sure how much my students will want to hear about my Italian lessons this fall.

I started a new batch of Italian lessons this week, which will continue through March for 30 hours total.  This is much more structured than my previous lessons, with daily homework!  Not only am I committing quite a bit of money to this, but I am also getting up at 6:15 in order to make it to the 7:30 AM lessons.

While I am only a few days in, a number of aspects of the learning process are very clear to me:

A teacher is needed to organize the knowledge.
Part of why I started with short term lessons was that I thought I could learn Italian on my own.  I had a pile of books and some baseline knowledge - I spent time every day reviewing flashcards, completing some exercises, and/or learning new words.  But this clearly wasn't working - these bits and pieces weren't helping me go out and actually talk to people.

Sure, I can memorize things on my own.  But I wasn't necessarily memorizing the most important things.  I could work on exercises that are "deeper practice" than simple memorization, but I was jumping around in the book.  I was picking and choosing what seemed interesting and skipping ahead, rather than ensuring my foundation was strong before moving on.

A teacher is needed to provide feedback
As a Novice, I am not capable of distinguishing what is the most important things to work on.  I couldn't necessarily recognize all of my own mistakes.  This is obviously a big challenge in language, where my ear cannot even hear the difference between some of the sounds.  But even when I could recognize my errors, I was not able to distinguish between major errors (that changed the meaning) versus the small errors that many people might make in normal speech.

The learning process is primarily based on the student doing things.
This was something I already deeply knew, but this experience continues to reinforce how fundamental this is.  In my current lessons, I am spending the majority of my time reading aloud and speaking.  This is hard!  It is fairly easy to listen to the instructor - but that doesn't make the knowledge stick.  There are a number of grammatical topics that I think I "know", but I make mistakes constantly in them when I speak (which goes back to the previous two points).  Without speaking, these mistakes (and subsequent corrections) wouldn't be obvious.

Learning requires more work than the student wants to do.
I did my homework for today, of course.  But, my instructor also told me I should be watching Italina TV.  I, of course, insisted (in Italian!) that I don't have free time to watch TV - I work at home in the evenings.  However, I did turn in the TV and set it to the news channel.  I ended up hearing about the NASA discovery announcement in Italian!  It is true that more exposure to Italian - and really focusing on it - would help me improve.  Of course, I'd have to put more time into it.

Being a novice is awkward and frustrating and learning does not happen as fast as one wants.
I knew that my Italian wasn't great before I arrived, but I think I envisioned going home semi-fluent.  This is nowhere near reasonable!  I have made excellent progress on vocabulary and becoming familiar with a variety of new grammatical rules (and additional conjugations).  However, my ability to quickly form sentences is about as good as it was when I took Italian about 6 years ago.  I really want to wake up and be fluent in Italian, but it just is not going to happen.  I can see that I am making progress, but I also see how slow I am when speaking and how few things I can easily say.

In the end, I don't know how this experience will change my teaching.  Much of this agrees with the pedagogical principles that i have already used to guide my teaching.  Will it help to share this experience with my students?  It seems like some of them think they will master physics if I just say the right words to them in the right way - but this is of course not true.  I'm sure that they will quickly get sick of hearing me talk about Italy and my leave, but maybe my class atmosphere can be a bit different if they know that my teaching techniques are influenced from my own experiences - and challenges! - as a student.

Some pictures from Bergamo

I'm getting very behind in showing off pictures from my travels - of course, this is because I am spending so much time traveling!  During a day trip to Bergamo, I walked a lot and saw many churches.  That is basically what I always do in Italy, but this was the first time a church actually took my breath away: Santa Maria Maggiore.

Sant'Alessandro della Croce - I didn't know rocks came in these colors

This used to be a convent - and now it is an academic building of the University of Bergamo.  

One of the original gates to the upper city.  Note that the road gets used for 2-way traffic!  Traffic flow is controlled by stoplights, and one must hope no one cheats the light.

Bergamo is made of the upper city (its old!) and the lower city (its fancy in a modern banking sortof way)

Santa Maria Maggiore - this was the breathtaking one.

In addition to every inch of the ceiling being decorated, there were also some huge tapestries.

I climbed a tower, from which I could see other towers.  

In Bergamo there were many shrines and memorial and signs about Pope John XXIII - he was born in the area and had studied/lived here.  

Further adjustments to local life (a superposition of fail and win)

I received a piece of mail today!  At one point, when buying train tickets, I signed up for their "club card" or something like that.  I wasn't sure if something physical would arrive - and it did!  But, it is a credit card?  I possibly accidentally signed up for an Italian credit card.  This is the CartaFreccia that I intended to sign up for, but I clearly need to do some translation of the fine print to understand why it is also a Visa prepaid card.

I went to retrieve my dry cleaning, and thought to look up some helpful words beforehand.  It seemed like it wasn't ready yet, so I guess I will go back later this afternoon.  My original plan had been to head to OSR after picking up my laundry, but not it looks like I will be working entirely from home today.  I hadn't had internet access at home from the weekend until last night, but it is back today.  Hence, working from home is entirely possible.

On the way back from the cleaners I saw that the "market" was happening.  My Airbnb host had told me there was a market on Wednesdays - this was the first time that I was there for it.  I was pretty excited - there were two stands with a variety of produce, a meat stand, a cheese stand, and then a variety of non-food tables.  I bought a chunk of cheese, a melon, and some fava beans.  I love fava beans, but I failed to correctly convert from kg to lb.  At the grocery store I typically buy 0.5-1 lb of favas for me... so here I asked for 1 kg.  That was the wrong conversion!  I now have a lot of fava beans to cook and eat.

It turns out that wasn't the market... that was just the first chunk.  It actually went back along another street, with many other booths and tables.  Most of the produce stands had close to everything - these aren't "farmers markets" at all, but more like an outdoor grocery store.  There was even one truck selling pet supplies and songbirds!  About half of the stands were selling clothes, craft supplies, and housewares.  While I was tempted by the fish vendor, I figured that (1) I would have difficulty cooking the fish with the oven/cooking supplies here (2) I have no idea how to describe how I want the fish cleaned in Italian.  I had a hard enough time buying the right type of onions at one of the booths!

Now it is time to get back to work... I spent most of the morning trying to plan travel.  I'm having a difficult time finding convenient/fast/affordable (pick 2?) ways to get to the Eastern European cities I hoped to visit.  It doesn't help that I'm trying to plan trips 3-10 days ahead of time.  I've reached the conclusion that transit will be $300, and I might as well prioritize accordingly.  I'm considering taking a night train to Vienna (and flying back).  I haven't taken a sleeper train before - not only would it satisfy my "take a different type of train each trip" pattern, but it has the greatest odds of me completely failing at doing it correctly!

Bologna: Amazing!

I traveled to Bologna since someone at work said it was nice and because it was easy to get to on the (high speed) train.  My "Northern Italy" guidebook didn't include it, so I didn't have an at-hand method for planning my trip.  I tried the "visitacity" app/website, which theoretically builds and adjusts itineraries for a variety of cities.  This is the first time I've made such a "detailed" plan for a trip, but it was helpful for thinking about the locations of sights and their hours.

I loved taking the fast train (frecciarossa) - our trip paralleled an expressway, and it looked as if the cars were sitting the still.  The max speed was near 200 mph!   Departing the station, I found a lovely park and the remains of a castle - I wasn't even to the main/historic part of the city yet!  On the other side of a park there was a market underway - mostly jewerly, clothes, etc.  I didn't see signs to know whether the market was every Saturday, or if this was a special occasion.  However, there was a stand with a variety of lovely bags.  I bought a leather bag that is large enough to use as an overnight bag, but small enough to use as a purse - which I've been wanting since I arrived.

At this point, I had already abandoned my itinerary.  As I walked into the city, I passed a beautiful church that wasn't even on the list - and there was a sign about a belltower tour later that day, so I decided to fully abandon my itinerary in order to return.  I then ended up at the main square, where there is a very large church.  I'm glad I chose to see it then, as it was still light on tourists in the morning.  I knew that a number of churches were closed for an hour or two in the early afternoon, so I was trying to see as many as possible beforehand.

One of the itinerary items had been a library.  I wasn't really sure why the library was a suggested sight, but I love books.  The library was right in the main square (where there is a famous fountain, currently closed for repairs) and has two reasons for being famous.  First, the building only recently became a library - and the building s gorgeous.  Second, the location has housed a variety of buildings, going back 2000 years.  In the basement they have a walkway through the ruins, with signs explaining the items (wells, roads, cistern) and which century they are from.  The main lobby of the library has glass panels in the floor so you can look down into the ruins.

I had a quick lunch, saw another church, and then found my hotel.  Just like Goa, I had booked a fairly fancy hotel right in the center of the tourist area.  After dropping my things in my room and charging the electronics, I headed back out for the belltower tour.  The church itself was beautiful, and I am very glad that I took the opportunity to go up to the bell tower. 

This is the "official" church of the Bishop of Bologna, and has been for however-many hundreds of years.  In that time the church was destroyed, rebuilt, etc.  At one point, it was decided to build a new belltower.  It was not explained why the decision was made to put the new belltower on top/around the old belltower.  So, going up the belltower is actually climbing a ramp that spirals between the inner wall of the new tower and the outer wall of the old tower.  The path was about as wide as my shoulders - I am very glad I had left my backpack at the hotel already.

The view from the top was amazing!  I'll post pictures later, in a different post.  This is the second tallest tower in Bologna, a city with a very large number of towers.  The tower houses 4 bells, which are run in "Bolognese-style."  This apparently involves the bells rotating a full 360 degrees one way, then returning 360 degrees back.  Given that the largest bell is over 3000kg, rotating the bells around makes the entire tower sway.  It also takes over 6+ people to ring it, since it is all done by hand.

After the bell tower, I headed to yet another church.  This one seemed to have a religious service going on (maybe they were just practicing?) so I left and planned to come back later.  However, every time I went back it was filled with people for mass, so I never saw that one.  However, next to it there was Santa Caterina's Orataory - this is a small chapel, but most importantly, there are music performances there.  I planned to come back for one at 6 PM.

After this, I grabbed a snack and saw more churches.  One "church" is actually a rather old church complex, called "New Jerusalem".  There was an antique market out front - I managed to not buy any of the antique books.  The church complex itself does manage to look like things I saw in Jerusalem, and in the back there is a monastery shop.  Here that involved a number of herbal products - unsurprisingly, I bought an herbal tea.  I had been very proud of myself for passing a number of tea shops earlier in the day without buying tea, but monastic tea was too exciting to pass on.

I went back for the concert.  I didn't know if it was possible to buy a ticket at the door, or how much tickets were.  I knew I was running low on cash, but hoped they could take card if the tickets were pricey.  At the door I successfully navigated the first part of the conversation in Italian - but then they told me 68.  Wow, much more expensive than I expected!  Seeing my confusion, they switched to English and said that was the seat number - the ticket price was by donation. 

Music: The concert was amazing, and that wasn't the only music I enjoyed in Bologna.  What I thought the advert for the concert said was that fugues by Bach were being performed.  I hadn't quite understood the instrument - harpsichord!   The harpsichord is one of my favorite instruments, and I love Bach's fugues, so this was absolutely a dream for me.  I also see now why they are so hard for me to play on piano - this concert was two harpsichordists (both women!) playing together.  Besides the concert, I also had heard the pipe organs played in two of the churches I had visited.  In one case it appeared as if the normal organ player was practicing, but another time it seemed like a visitor (who was being shown the organ) played.  In any case, it was amazing to hear.  There was also some very excellent street music in the major squares in the city.

After the concert, I decided to have a proper dinner in a sit down restaurant.  A colleague had recommended a specific trattoria - but they were a bit far away.  This place appeared to be well-known as one of the best places in Bologna for local food, so I called to see if I could get a reservation.  The person who answered the phone didn't speak English, but I managed the situation in Italian - nope, they were full.  I asked my hotel front desk for a recommendation and they called and got me a table at the restaurant down the street.  I enjoyed some local food and an excellent Italian wine (that I was not familiar with).

Part of why I saw so many churches is that I knew they would be closed to tourists on Sunday.  My original itinerary had a variety of museums on the schedule, but I decided instead to focus on the University of Bologna - the oldest university in Europe.  I went to their Art and Science museum, which was very interesting.  They have a huge collection of model fetuses for teaching OB/GYN - so dozens of different positions, malformations, etc.  On the whole, it was creepy! 

I then wandered towards the part of the city where I hadn't been yet and where there were canals.  I also decided to go to the Modern Art museum.  The museum was very good - their permanent collection focused on Italian artists, but they had a special exhibit on a German artist that I was not familiar with.  I would describe his work as the visual equivalent of a Philip K Dick novel: very good, disturbing, and it manages to jar your faith in reality.

A few miscellaneous thoughts:
Restaurants:  This trip included my first meals at Italian restaurants in Italy, since I really needed to try the food of this region.  Both meals were excellent - though I think I failed, both times, at picking two dishes that were allowed to serve as a primo/secondo pair.   Other than those meals, I also ate a lot of sandwiches my first day - 3 different times, in fact.  They were good, though I'm unsure if any of them were regional specialties.  I don't know the names of things like that (and there are different size/types of sandwiches with different names), so ordering those at a bar usually involves me pointing and looking confused.
Italian: I think my Italian serves me fairly well this trip.  At one point I saw a sign for an interesting looking "tower tour", and sent an email inquiring if there were spots available for that afternoon (in Italian).  I'm sure my Italian wasn't great - and certainly wasn't polite enough - but they replied in Italian (saying the tour wasn't held over the winter).  I was also proud of attempting to make a reservation, over the phone, in Italian.
Walking: Unlike Genoa (and Milan, etc), Bologna doesn't have a metro system and didn't seem to have an extensive bus system.  Much of the historic district is completely closed to cars, in fact.  However, it was very compact and easy to walk everywhere.  Also, I wore my hiking shoes this time, rather than my heels.